Savagery often swept
like a fierce desert wind
over the ancient Middle
East. According to arche
ologist Paolo Matthiae,
discoverer of Ebla, the
city was sacked by the re
lentless Akkadians about
2250 B.C., as depicted in
this painting.
For this article, the art
ist renders scenes in the
shape of Ebla tablets,
with characters springing
to life from backgrounds
inspired by artistic con
ventions of that period.
Here, Akkadian King
Naram-Sin subdues an
Eblaite as soldiers stand
ready at his back, and
captives languish in a net
beneath.
The recurring con
quests of cities left layers
of ruins over which new
structures were raised.
Archeologists
digging
into a mound called Tell
Mardikh sliced through
several layers before dis
covering Ebla, a major
city of the Early Bronze
Age.
The excavation
yielded the largest ar
chive of third-millennium
texts ever found and sent
waves
of excitement
through the world of Bib
lical scholarship. Epigra
phist Giovanni Pettinato
says the tablets mention
the cities of Sodom and
Gomorrah, and include
the name David, found in
no other ancient text ex
cept the Bible.
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